The US Federal Trade Commission is moving expeditiously to decide if Google used its search clout to harm competitors and expects to complete its investigation by the end of the year.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said the agency was looking for proof that Google manipulated its search results to steer users to its new businesses, like travel search. If it did, then it could be against the law. Leibowitz later said that he expected a decision by the end of the year.

Google rivals specialising in travel, shopping and entertainment have accused Google of steering Internet users away from their websites to Google products that provide similar services. Google has said it did nuttin and it was already broken before it got there.

European regulators are conducting a similar antitrust probe and are talking to Google to see if it is possible to reach an agreement.

Korea's corporate regulator fined some of the country's top IT outfits with a $40.1 million fine for price rigging and consumer fraud. Samsung, LG, Pantech, SK Telecom, KT and LG in hot water along with some key telecommunications companies.

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said the companies colluded to inflate the prices of mobile phones and then advertise they were offering considerable incentives. This practice effectively tricked consumers into believing they were getting a bargain for buying new phones. On top of the fine, the companies have been ordered to release information on how much they provided in incentives to fuel sales.

The FTC, in addition, took administrative steps to ban these companies from offering new sales incentives. The worst offender was SK Telecom followed by Samsung Electronics and mobile carrier KT.

Mobile phone manufacturers marked up the prices of 209 models they handed over to mobile service operators, while operators advertised they were offering discounts on products and services that should not have been so expensive in the first place, the regulator said. "Companies took advantage of the complicated price setting practice in the mobile telecommunications sector to trick consumers," an FTC official said.

Apple seems to have found an ally it its quest to ban Android from stores and force people to buy tablets.

According to the Wall Street Journal Federal Trade Commission officials are focusing their antitrust investigation on several key areas of Google's business, including its Android mobile phone software and web search related services. They also have been asking around if Google favours its own products, such as Google's "Places" business listings, its "Shopping results" and Google Finance services.

Investigators have been asking if Google is restricting the use of rivals' services on mobile devices using its widely used operating system, Android. Recently Skyhook Wireless sued Google for using its market power to pressure smartphone makers into dropping Skyhook's location-sensing technology in favour of Google's own, competing service.

The FTC have been listening to world on the street about the growing influence of Android and how it may be helping Google maintain its lead in Web search. Google's search engine is the default for many phones built using Android. If the FTC says that Google must abandon Android it could lead the field clear for proprietary software outfits like Apple and Microsoft to rule the roost.

Reverb Communications, the PR agency that works with Harmonix, MTV, CDV and 505 Games, has settled US FTC’s charges which charged the company of unfairly promoting their clients’ products. Apparently, Reverb Communications’ employees have been submitting favorable reviews on the iTunes App store between November 2008 and May 2009, posing as regular Joe customers.

This has angered the FTC, which is now trying to marry words like “advertising” and “truth “ and make the general public feel like these two go hand in hand. FTC’s Mary Engle said how basically all companies need to “by long-held principles of truth in advertising,". We’re not sure who quite upheld them all this while because it seems to have done a pretty lousy job so far.

Reverb’s Casey Lynch, however, told Kotaku how the entire ordeal “severely impacted” the company and the settlement was in their best interest. This indeed seems to be the best way as spending a small fortune on lawyers isn’t quite a fun thing, and besides the FTC says how “The consent agreement is for settlement purposes only and does not constitute admission by the respondents of a law violation.”

According to Reuters, Intel is planning to settle its longstanding case with the US Federal Trade Commission.

The case itself stems from complaints filed by Nvidia, alleging that Intel advised companies to avoid Nvidia hardware and that it offered unfair bundles to vendors who chose to do so. Nvidia claims that Intel’s practices hurt sales of its ION chipset.

However, Intel is unlikely to pay any compensation to Nvidia. Instead, the settlement could resolve the companies’ dispute over chipset licensing, at least to some extent. It’s still unclear what the chipset part of the settlement would entail, but we wouldn’t hold our breath for any Nvidia PQI chipsets anytime soon.

Intel says it has a month to make up its mind on a settlement dumped on it by the FTC.

Intel has been been accused of strong-arming clients into buying its computer chips. It announced that it has until July 22 to "review and discuss a proposed" settlement. The chip maker said it would not comment further because the terms of the proposed consent order were confidential.

If the two parties do not reach an agreement by that date, the case could go before court in September. If the judge rules against Intel, the company could be forced to change the way it prices its products and could be ordered to share intellectual property with competitors.

The FTC filed charges against Intel last December saying that the outfit had "engaged in a deliberate campaign to hamstring competitive threats to its monopoly." Intel had been "running roughshod over the principles of fair play and the laws protecting competition on the merits," an FCC spokesman said. Intel paid $1.25 billion to AMD last year to settle antitrust claims.